The (second) greatest lie ever told

Small business BIG growth®
Words by John Di Natale, Founder and Managing Director of BIGthink! Business Booster®

I’ve just spent almost TWO HOURS on hold over 3 calls to NAB. I have a simple request, but apparently the team that deals with my request does not take calls from “the public”. Hmm, I thought I was a customer, but apparently I’m just the public. So instead, I have to speak with the “customer service” person and have then put me on hold whilst they try to contact this highly elusive team on my behalf.

Meanwhile on hold, the annoyingly happy voice recording is telling me how important my call is. What a lot of rubbish. If my call was important, you’d bloody well answer it. If you’re as committed to helping small business as your recording says you are, you wouldn’t waste two hours of my day waiting for someone to answer the phone.

I wonder how many of your small business customers would keep their customers on hold for this long. If you’re a small business owner reading this, here’s a little experiment for you: ask your next customer to hold, and then leave them there for a couple of hours or so, all the while playing a recording telling them how fabulous you are. What do you think the outcome would be? I’m pretty sure, my clients would tell me to get stuffed – and I’d be disappointed if they didn’t!

So, please don’t insult my intelligence by having a recorded voice tell me my call is important – show me. Please don’t tell me how committed you are to supporting small business – show me. Stop talking, start doing. And frankly at this stage, I don’t really care about your community support programs…

Apart from me just having a rant, there’s a lesson here for all of us. What promises are we making in our businesses? Do we deliver on them? Perhaps check and either adjust the promise and expectations or work on making sure the service aligns.

I’ve written this – and I’m still on hold. Apparently they’re experiencing unusually long wait times…

JOHN DI NATALE

John Di Natale is Founder and Managing Director of BIGthink! Business Booster®, a highly sought-after speaker and business growth specialist. The BIGthink! MasterPlan and Business Booster programs are specifically designed to help you grow your business faster and build the life you really want.